"Morning, Pops!" the cowboy jumping down from the cab of his mega pickup yelled out loudly as if he knew the old man he was talking to was hard of hearing. "How ya' been doing?" He slammed the cab's door behind him, straightened his new Stetson hat, and hiked up his ironed Wrangler jeans.
"Huh?"
The elderly man he had directed his comment to hardly looked up at all. That old guy was far too busy picking his way very very very carefully along the uneven concrete that passed for a sidewalk. The old man did nod his head slightly as if grudgingly unhappy to be interrupted before he went back to staring at that sidewalk and picking his way to wherever he was going with that old cane he always had with him.
The old geezer was an American country classic! Perched on his wrinkled nose were yellow plastic rim glasses, bifocals and extremely thick too. He wore his very thin white hair, with some remaining black streaks, combed back straight up over his forehead. He was wearing old trousers with strange and very large bright yellow suspenders; and, in spite of the summer's heat, he also had on a white long sleeved almost pin striped shirt rolled up almost to his elbow. He was watching where he walked very carefully, taking one step at a time, and plodding along very slow.
A few steps in front of him was an even frailer looking white haired lady thinner than a rail. Very thin, a bit bent over, with pure white hair pulled back in a bun without catching all strands, she wore a white house dress with a pattern of little blue flowers and tiny kites in it and a white matching cloth belt tied carefully around her extremely thin waist. Her dress went almost to her ankles, white socks and white leather shoes. Round thick wire glasses were perched high on her strong and prominent sharp nose. Her look was stern—high cheekbones, no makeup, and she was not smiling at all. She, like the old man behind her, was also having trouble walking, but she was leaning on the young man on her right sided.
A youngish looking teenage boy was holding on to her right arm and she was leaning on him for support as she moved slowly forward. The boy was real good looking actually. He had salt and pepper blond curly hair, in part sticking up. He surely had the nicest thin, attractive smile and gave the overall appearance of just a great "boy next door." He looked maybe sixteen or seventeen and was wearing a white shirt like the old man behind him, khaki color, old baggy pants, a brown cheap belt, and a scuffed up pair of very worn old brown shoes with tan socks. Still, there was just something nice about him. He had a naive look, like one of those "boys" drawn by Jonathan who have that farm boy appearance and clear muscular development, the physique of a jail bait devil, and the smile of an angel in spite of it all. All together the young man was the kind of kid you immediately felt attractive to and almost felt the need to help along and get to know. He seemed real respectable and courteous too. After all, he was at that moment helping along an old, frail woman. Maybe his grandma?
The cowboy looked over at the three of them and could not help himself from smiling broadly as the three of them were moving so slowly and carefully toward the only café coffee shop within miles. He had seen the old man a lot more recently though not regularly. Still he knew him and he knew him fairly well. The only lady rarely came into town, but he was sure he had not ever seen the young man with them before. That boy was striking enough that he knew he would have remembered him. Then again it was summer time and school was out back in the city.
"Pops," that was what everybody knew him by around here, was still walking behind the two of them. Somehow that was how it ought to be. Anybody from around here would have know him. Pops never hesitated to tell anyone who would listen what he through about anything and everything. From when it would rain to politicians, who he hated, all the way to what was wrong with the schools and especially the young people today, Pops was vocal about them all! And anyone who lived around there would have immediately looked at that good looking young man with him and his wife and immediately suspected Pops would soon be taking his belt to that nice young one if he had not done so already! Just the way Pops was. He had raised his own boys that way too! Pops believed in discipline. He really believed in it! And he never hesitated to tell anyone who happened to be sitting around that large oak table in the café they were picking their way towards exactly what he thought of the way kids were growing up today.
"Ain't no secret 'bout raising no kids. No way," he would often say in his gravelly voice loud enough for all anywhere near him to hear him. "Why in my day every family had a good thick strap hanging around in the kitchen and they knew how to use it too. Didn't need none of those family conference things with the women folk butting in neither. No way. Just the man of the house and the boys on a Saturday night and you can believe me for sure that strap did all the talking. That's the way it should be too. I know I still got mine and you ain't gonna' ever hear none of my grand young'ens doing none of that swearing or modern stuff. Tan their hides good for them, I would. None of these dargone modern ideas that don't work. A good strap across the seat of a boy's pants is all what these young ones need today too. They's a asking for it too, just asking. Just look at 'em after school hanging all around town. Their trousers are so low they're almost down for you to give it to 'em too. I'd handle them if I were their teacher I would. They're out of control but nuthin's wrong a good strapping wouldn't cure. It's what they're missing today, believe me. Saturday night used to be a real family night for sure. Nuthin' like today neither. No wonder this here's country's going to hell in a handbag. Didn't have none of these problem when I was young."
And among those around the table, there would be many smiles and smirks for sure as Pops would rant on, as a lot of them smiling from around here, probably even most of them, would agree with him too! These were good, God-fearing men and women who lived and farmed here who still went to church on Sundays, still saluted the flag with pride and began community meeting with the pledge of allegiance, and they raised and brought up large families the old fashioned way. The cowboy knew that. After all, he brought up his own boys that way too.
So who was the young handsome kid helping the old lady up the sidewalk? He was wearing his pants loose and a bit low slung, though not half down off his hips, too. That made it hard to guess what he might really look like? But the cowboy in his own contrasting tight wranglers and boots was interested enough to wonder. The old man was the patriarch for his rather large family that was mostly farming kin like himself, but these days with farms not making any money they were spread out all over the county. The cowboy walked over closer to the old man and offered him his own arm to help him along. This time the man stopped and looked up at him.
"Morning, Jeb!" this time the old man spoke out clearly with a toothless smile that showed recognition. Maybe he needed his glasses strengthened again?
"How's that farm been treating you out there, Pops?" he greeting him all over again.
"Well now Jeb. Say I ain't see ya' for ages. Good to see ya' boy. How's your old man?"
What could the cowboy say? His dad passed years ago but Pops always asked that same question every time he saw him.
"Pops, dad's been dead for going on ten years now," the cowboy reminded the old man.
"Really? Been that long?" the old man looked at him with disbelief. His eyes bulged open widely behind his thick yellow plastic lenses. "Guess I heard that somewhere. Why I remember warn't too many years ago when you were just a kid still over your pappy's knees." The old man patted the cowboy's arm while his hand was still holding his cane. He stopped and looked up at the cowboy fondly. "Real good to see you, son. Real good."
"Come on, Pops. Let me help you," the cowboy said. "You going in the café to get ya' somethin' to eat?"
"You bet ya," the old man took his arm more firmly and seemed to be leaning on it. "Brought 'em all in for a treat today, but can't stay too long ya know. Got 'em animals to keep track of, remember? That there's boy's been helping me. Getting difficult for me some days and all. He's from the city, ya' know."
The cowboy smiled down knowingly at the old man now. Pops had to be in his mid-eighty's. Jeb and the old man started walking slowly up the sidewalk. They were behind that old lady, his wife of fifty some years, and the citified boy helping her make the same journey safely. The boy was talking with the old lady, but what they were talking about was impossible to make out. They made it to the front double doors of that café that did double duty as the coffee shop lunch room during the day. The young looking boy was holding the old wooden door open for her as the cowboy and the old man approached. The screen door was held open by the boy's back against it.
"Don't you talk like that 'fore I back hand you again," the old lady suddenly said to the boy.
Momentarily the boy looked at the cowboy and knew the cowboy had to have heard her. His face flushed red, he seemed read edgy, and he looked away quickly. It was all the cowboy could do not to laugh out loud. That old lady slapping this young kid? Could not have possibly hurt. That would be the day!
"Pa ain't too old to take his strap to you neither, mind you now," she seemed to be scolding him about one thing or another. Her old withered finger shook his way almost in his eye. "Now you mind your manners in here I tell ya and mind good 'fore I tell Paw."
"Yes, ma'am." The boy was scarlet. He seemed to be having a hard time standing still beside her too. The old man and the cowboy were now right behind them where there was no way either of them could not have heard her scolding him. The boy stiffened even more, holding the door impatiently for her to go through it. The old man was right there with this stranger in the cowboy hat. The stranger said nothing but the half smile _expression on his face gave him away.
"You acting up again, son?" the old man had heard his wife speaking to him.
"No, no, Grandpa. Nothing like that." But the boy did not say it with too much conviction either.
"Don't ya be giving Ma no trouble, son. Ya listen to her. Ya don't, I'll take my strap to ya when I's get ya' home I will." The old man seemed serious but he looked far too old and frail to be much of a threat anymore to the boy or anyone else.
The cowboy stood there with the old man holding on to him for support and could not help but smile at the thought of this frail man wielding that old leather strap he had talked about so often across this particular young man's turned up bottom. It seemed comical to imagine. The old man could not possibly cause the young boy much of a problem even if he had stripped the boy as the cowboy used to do to his own sons. Heck, the old man looked like he would have trouble just swatting a fly, let alone lathering up his grandson's ass.
But the boy had turned real red and seemed very embarrassed at the exchange of words that had gone on between all of them anyway. "I ain't done nothing, Grandpa, really" he said looking at the old man but then up to the cowboy. The boy for his part was trying his best to usher that old lady through the doors as quick as possible but she just was not budging for some unknown reason. The boy looked over at the unknown cowboy he had never seen before. The cowboy just smiled and looked back.
"So, you just keep it that way," Pops expounded, "or you're gonna' feel that strap when we get home, you are." The old man pounded the tip of his cane on the wooden sidewalk seemingly for emphasis.
"I will, Grandpa, I will," the very red-faced boy responded.
The cowboy standing there could not tell if the young boy had felt it before or not, but he wondered?
But in spite of the exchange of words, finally the old woman managed to make some progress through the door; and, although it did not happen too quickly, ultimately the old folks with the boy and the cowboy too were all sitting down at that old common oak table and all looking at the very short menu board on the wall.
Just country folk. Nothing more, nothing less! Salt of the earth, for sure.
The waitress, who looked like she had been doing hard labor in the salt mines for years and who had certainly never heard the word "makeup," brought them all hot coffee before any of them even had a chance to ask for it. She knew them all. Still she did take the time to point to the green chalk board on the wall which offered all of four whole choices. Never mind. "What ya'all want?" she barked loudly like a drill sergeant.
One by one, around the table they all ordered while from the back where the kitchen was no less than four elderly workers came out to say good morning to the old man and woman and the cowboy too. The waitress flew through those order green forms with her pencil scribbling away although it did not take all that much thinking as she only wrote down one of the four numbers. Never mind. She had been doing things her way for years and was not about to change now.
Everybody called the old man "Pops" and his frail wife, "Ma'am." Everybody around town knew them both. Everyone also already knew the cowboy's name was "Jeb." He had the big spread outside of town that bordered their own one. It took time but Pops finally got around to introducing his city slicker great grandson, a high school boy he said was called "simply Aaron."
"Mighty proud of him I am," Pops made it clear to all in that cafe. "All boy. Gets real good grades, too. Don't know nothing about farming though. Nuthing at all."
The place roared with laughter at the expense of Aaron who turned red again at his great grandfather's comments.
"Sure you'll teach him same as you did your own sons, right Pops?" the waitress was talking now.
Pops looked up at her and shot back, "Margie, what in God's green earth could you possibly know about raising boys? Why the only kids you got are those stupid goat things. You don't got ya any boys."
Margie looked down at that old man sitting there and smirked, "No, but I got me a hot pot of coffee here so you best mind your manners, you old geezer. Too early to take no guff from the likes of you." She tussled his thinning hair with her free time as his wife watched admiringly and the others roared.
"You tell him, Hon," his wife came out with.
All things being equal it was just another morning around the place in the small town where everyone knew everyone really well.
Soon others joined them at the table which sat twelve give or take a few. Food was piled high on the table in serving bowls family style. Most of those sitting around the table were older farmers and ranchers fresh from feeding the livestock and taking a break for a huge country breakfast with their old friends as they did most mornings when work permitted. To put it mildly, most of them looked like hell and something fresh out of the Ozarks. Most for sure seemed to never have seen a razor and their farmer's hats that they all kept on their heads made them look like country bumpkins for sure. They were not bumpkins though. In fact some of the wildest looking ones were also the ones who ran the most profitable spreads. They were wealthy farmers and ranchers who gave their all for their land but they never bothered to care much about what they looked like. That just was not important.
At any one time several conversations were taking place around that table but somehow everyone there seemed to hear what everyone else was saying. Whatever had been the issue at the front door between the old lady and the young boy seemed long forgotten. Aaron seemed to be fine with things too in the midst of all this country stuff, but every now and then he still stole a quick glance at that cowboy. And, he seemed always mindful of sitting beside his great grandmother.
The old lady had run the small town's one room school house single handedly for years before age finally caught up with her and even she had to come to grips with giving it up. She had always been one of those old school marms with ruler in hand who struck terror in the hearts of the kids she rules over unquestioningly. Her ruler never played favorites but struck kids hands as she saw fit. She also was not at all shy about turning a student or two over her lap and using that same old ruler or the paddle she kept in her top right drawer on the errant kid's turned over bottom. And the pointed dunce cap and stool where always in her class room too. But it was her own six boys and three girls that she raised up with an iron hand at home. Her own sons, now adults with their own grand kids like Aaron, often would joke about being raised with mom's or grandma's paddle.
And dad, the old man, did not shy away from his own chores raising the boys either. He really did have an old leather razor strap hanging in his kitchen back in those days and everybody knew it. In his prime he would regularly apply it on the boys' backsides in the kitchen on a Saturday night and he did not much hesitate to march them out into the barn to finish the job either. As a consequence, everybody knew their kids and they were the best educated and best behaved in the town.
The old lady was one of those picky grammarians. Even sitting there she openly corrected his grammar when Aaron was speaking to anyone. "Mind you," she seemed to always say after interrupting and correcting him. Aaron would say whatever it was all over again and keep talking, but he did seem flustered by her too.
Aaron was here for the summer vacation to help his great grandpa, but the old lady and Pops were anything but easy on him. All of those around the table knew those two well enough to know they would be disciplining him while he was around them this summer. Some of them suspected that that was the real reason the boy's parents had sent him from the city to help the old couple for the summer.
The conversation at that table took a turn when one of the farmers brought up the kids that stole the calf from his field for a Senior High prank. The calf had died and the kids were dragged into court by the Sheriff who had kept them in jail waiting for the judge to get around to handle them. They got two weeks in the caboose, had to buy the farmer a new calf, and clean up the whole town square because of it.
"In my day," said the farmer who's calf had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was unfortunately to have been dragged off to the high school for the prank, "their pappies would have whipped them raw." He arguably was obviously still upset at the whole thing.
"And that's the way it should have been for these ones too," the old men all agreed. "But their dads today lack guts."
"Well," Pops added in, "you can be sure if any of my grandkids had done a _d_a_m_n_ fool thing like that, even Aaron, I'd have whipped 'em for sure. Right, Aaron?"
All of a sudden all eyes were on the poor kid. "Ah, like well maybe that's not the way to do it these days," he mumbled to himself.
"Hum, like heck it ain't," his great grandfather chimed in but looked directly at Aaron, "don't you go getting any ideas about trying a dumb thing like that, unless you want a real good whipping, that is."
Everybody around the table laughed at the boy's expense.
The boy himself just seemed embarrassed and looked down at his plate on the table, "Awwh, Grandpa, maybe it was just a joke."
"Joke or no joke, don't you go trying it."
"I won't, Sir," the boy added still looking down.
"Ya see," Pops announced to the whole table, "ya just gotta' be firm with these young-ens so they know you're serious. Right, Aaron?"
"Yes, Grandpa," he spoke up but weakly. His eyes never left his plate. Instead the young boy looked very embarrassed by the whole exchange.
"We need to talk to that Sheriff of ours," Pops went on with his soapbox lecture. "Bring him over here tomorrow or the next day and let's exercise some democracy."
Those at the table burst out laughing, but there was no question the old folks there would do it too. And there was also no question at all that the Sheriff would come if one of them asked him to.
The conversation turned to other topics and seemed to go on forever but after awhile those around the table began to disappear back to their own chores that day. Pops and his family got up to leave too. Just as they had made their way in, the old lady took the young boy's arm and the cowboy helped Pops. Outside as they pecked their way to the old man's truck the old lady continued to pick at her grandson for everything from not walking slowly enough to the way he was not holding her carefully enough, to his English grammar. The kid seemed to have given up and was no longer showing embarrassment. Pops picked on him every time she complained as well. One time he even reminded the boy he still had his strap in the kitchen.
The cowboy looked at the young boy and knew Pops would use it too. Jeb, after all, had a strap like Pops' in his own kitchen too. He had used it on his own boys lots of times, but when he wife ran off to the city with another man and divorced him the boys went with her and off to college. Consequently his strap just hung mostly there but he had never thought about taking it down. It belonged there.
Jeb helped Pops up in his truck even though Pops resisted him at every way and insisted he could do it by himself. Finally with the three of them in the cab, Pops and his wife waved warmly and the car started. Aaron just watched them start to drive away.
"Come by for dinner some time, Jeb," the old lady yelled out weakly, "Always good to see you, young man."
Jeb just smiled. He was 47! He hopped up in the cab of his own pickup and headed down to buy some feed. Soon he forgot all about the morning as the physical chores of the afternoon and evening took precedence.
to be continued . . .